Galway Arts Festival 2018

It still amazes me how many festivals are organised in this relatively small city throughout the year.
Amazing is also the level of quality and variety that they boast.

You always have the feeling that what you see is something beautiful and so simple at the same time. You can clearly see in front of your eyes how complicated, elaborated, grand shows are not needed at all in order to create wonder.

What I usually feel on these occasions is a sense of cosiness that brings the town together, that makes you feel part of something lively that is happening around you.
Cosiness and openess at the same time, because in this particular case I’m referring to the Galway International Arts Festival, which took place between the 16th and 29th of July.

I attended only four events out of the countless ones that were organised.

One of the main themes was probably the most discussed one at the moment: migrants and refugees stories. Individual, deeply personal stories were narrated through different means and storytelling techniques.

For example, one of the events I attended was very interactive. You actually had to lie down on a garden which was also a cemetery of syrian people killed in war, and you had to dig up one of those tombs to hear the story of who was buried there.
Touching and descreet altogether.

This is what I usually love of these experiences that brings you in contact with the place you live in, and also the rest of the world out there.

Definitely one of the reasons why I admire this country and city in particular.

It’s also a good excuse to do something different at a time where everybody is talking about holidays, and you don’t have any planned. Discovering your own town has that holiday feeling to me.